restore the currency of the kingdom
at the expense of those individuals in whose hands the clipped sliver
happened at a particular moment to be.

Locke declared that he regretted the loss which, if his advice were
taken, would fall on the holders of the short money. But it appeared to
him that the nation must make a choice between evils. And in truth it
was much easier to lay down the general proposition that the expenses
of restoring the currency ought to be borne by the public than to devise
any mode in which they could without extreme inconvenience and danger be
so borne. Was it to be announced that every person who should within a
term of a year or half a year carry to the mint a clipped crown should
receive in exchange for it a milled crown, and that the difference
between the value of the two pieces should be made good out of the
public purse? That would be to offer a premium for clipping. The shears
would be more busy than ever. The short money would every day become
shorter. The difference which the taxpayers would have to make good
would probably be greater by a million at the end of the term than
at the beginning; and the whole of this million would go to reward
malefactors. If the time allowed for the bringing in of the hammered
coin were much shortened, the danger of further clipping would be
proportionally diminished; but another danger would be incurred. The
silver would flow into the mint so much faster than it could possibly
flow out, that there must during some months be a grievous scarcity of
money.

A singularly bold and ingenious expedient occurred to Somers and was
approved by William. It was that a proclamation should be prepared with
great secresy, and published at once in all parts of the kingdom. This
proclamation was to announce that hammered coins would thenceforth pass
only by weight. But every possessor of such coins was to be invited to
deliver them up within three days, in a sealed packet, to the public
authorities. The coins were to be examined, numbered, weighed, and
returned to the owner with a promissory note entitling him to receive
from the Treasury at a future time the difference between the actual
quantity of silver in his pieces and the quantity of silver which,
according to the standard, those pieces ought to have contained. [641]
Had this plan been adopted an immediate stop would have been put to
the clipping, the melting and the exporting; and the expense of the
restoration o